Drawing by William Sharp

Leon Schleifer was born in 1900 in Germany. He served in the German army at the end of World War I (1914-1918). He became a political cartoonist and his work was published in the anti-Nazi press. He also specialized in courtroom trial sketches. After the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, Schliefer emigrated to the United States. He changed his name to William Sharp and continued his career as an editorial cartoonist and illustrator. His work was published in the New York Times, Life Magazine, and other publications. He died in 1961, age sixty-one years. 

The drawing was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995 by Harold Shachner. 

Drawing by William Sharp 

overall: Height: 11.500 inches (29.21 cm) | Width: 14.500 inches (36.83 cm) 

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Image of a shadowed Nazi death representation hovering over a German soldier who is looking over his shoulder in fright. Lands surrounding the figures is destroyed, crosses (cemetery) in the left corner of the image. Verso: two distinct miscellaneous sketchings. Sheet divided in half, left and right. Left half appears to be the beginnings of a drawing of a couple huddling together. Right shows a figure kneeling on the ground with arms folded in as if the hands were going to be clasped together in prayer.